Kevin Zaborney is credited with coming up with the idea of National Hug Day in 1986. It was included in Chase's Calendar of Events; Zaborney's friend at the time was the granddaughter of the proprietors of the publication. He chose January 21st as it fell between the Christmas and New Year's Holidays and Valentine's Day and birthdays when he thought people are generally in low spirits.[1] Zaborney considered that "American society is embarrassed to show feelings in public" and hoped that a National Hugging Day would change that,[1] although he thought that his idea would fail.[2] A 2003 study by the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School found that American couples spend only one-third of the time touching that French couples spend.[9]